Facing massive storm costs, how resilient is the insurance industry?

The cost of storms fueled by climate change exceeded $300 million last year. We discuss what that means for the insurance industry, plus the implications of too much winter salt and how the media fails to attribute climate change to extreme weather.

Here's some more on this week's Climate Cast:

• In this era of extreme weather and rising climate risk, how resilient is our insurance industry? MPR News chief meteorologist poses the question to Don Hornstein, a University of North Carolina insurance and environmental law professor, who goes over the ramifications of the 2017 mega-storms.

• Road salt's toll on the environment. As our climate shifts to have more winter rain and ice, many people may turn to rock salt to make safer roads and sidewalks. But that means bad news for water quality — chlorides in salt can permanently contaminate water. Annie Baxter of The Water Main catches us up on this rising issue for water quality.

• Nine percent. That's the percentage of news stories in 2017 that linked record or historic flood and wildfire events to climate change. A study by The Public Citizen confirms how most news media fails at reporting on the growing science of climate change attribution in extreme weather events.